In a few of the last posts I have discussed our personal legend, our vision for our life, or seeing our personal evolution unfold.
By looking at this we saw some things which often keep people from living their vision, such as “having a dream of something is as powerful as actually living the vision,” well, at least this is what we tell our self - this is the power of anticipation. We want something, and dream of it, but to actually get it is to no longer have the dream as we know it. When we are standing at the starting line of our journey we know that if we finish the race, the race will be done and there will be nothing left. So we wait at the starting blocks, or start the race, but distract ourselves from finishing, for if we finish, then what? In the game of life there is no one to congratulate you at the end. And even if there is, did we do it simply so others could be impressed? Likely not, for we know this too is fanciful, as we will never impress everyone.
We have failed to realize that the journey continues. And the fulfillment of one dream just opens up another before us.
So life then becomes only about us. It is about each of us evolving, simply for the sake of evolving. And when we evolve, everything around us evolves. And if something (or someone) is not ready to evolve with us, then they will take a different path than us.
Living our personal vision is all that matters, and too not pursue is to let ourselves and everyone around us down. The people around us can think they are doing us good by not pushing us forward, but they are not. And we allow them to lie to us that is ok not to pursue our dream, and we likely lie to them as well. This is a conflict, and it will eat at us.
But if we move to that vision, all of a sudden things get dicey. Those who have pursued a dream know this…it seems smooth sailing at first then something happens, we get put to the test. This is where most people falter (and where our friends drag us down by saying “its ok, you tried”). It is the point where we must experience and live through all the knowledge that brought us up to this point. It happens so that we can really understand what the journey was all about. If we keep pushing, the rewards are immense. If we stop pursuing our goal, or fight against the test, our dream is unrealized and often we become embittered.
We then go back to our normal life, because it is what we know and what most of the people around us know. But often we take on a defeatist attitude. We tried and failed, but we didn’t really fail, we just gave up when the dream was close at hand. This is extremely hard to shallow.
Those that have not pursued their dream, or those have have tried and then given up are often people that think those who are rich or who have reached their dream should give for free to those who have not attained their dream. But we must realize that getting a hand out will do nothing for us….absolutely nothing, unless we are actually going to use it to conquer our dream.
Those that have reached their dream have done it through hard work, and that is to be respected, not belittled by those who have not achieved it. If we look at people with money, fame, or the respect we want, and we make fun of them or say they don’t deserve it, or degrade them in some way…what are we actually doing? We are giving ourselves a reason not to pursue our own dream. Whether we agree with what someone is doing or not, if we belittle them for achieving an enviable position, we are stock piling road blocks for our self to overcome if we do decide to pursue our dream at some point.
How many times have you made fun of or said someone did not deserve the life they have? Probably many times, with many people, covering many possible paths. Take for instance if we belittle a musician with “tabloid” problems…and we say things like “if you are the spot light you deserve to hounded by the media”. You have just given yourself a reason never to be in the spot light. If your dreams relate in anyway to possibly being in the spot light, the chances of reaching that dream are diminished every time we bring down a person who is in a place where we dream of being.
I hear things like, “I should write Bill Gates and ask him $50,000. That is nothing to him, he has too much anyway.” But again, the handout will do nothing to change our life. This is evidenced by lottery winners returning to poverty years later more miserable than they were before (not all, but many). Also, stop and think about why Bill Gates has so much money. He is picked on a lot. And he changed the world! You are reading this because of him. I can see pictures of my friends around the world because of him. That man built the world we live in and enjoy, and all we do is chastise him. If we do that to someone who built a world of products we all use and enjoy, how are we going to convince our self to take on our own goal?
Extend this thought process out. What is you want to do? Who is already there that you know personally or have witnessed? Be honest, how do you think about these people?
Our vision is elusive, and it is not. It is right there, but can be uncomfortable getting there because of a host of factors talked about in other articles. Also, we look at people who attained what we want, and they have blown it. This also deters us, because not only do we seem to have the dream within our grasp, but it is then possible to lose it again right in the spot light.
So how do we proceed then?
We follow our heart, and when we have reached our goal another one will crop up, which we must follow again. It is not about actually attaining the dream, that will happen on its own as we give our attention to it, rather we need to enjoy the journey. We must love what we are doing on the path to the vision. If that happens we won’t sabatage ourselves.
~Cory Mitchell
